1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to methods, systems and computer program products for navigating digital media content, particularly ones for navigating digital media content using an interface abstracted from that digital media content instead of, or as a supplement to, traditional user interface controls.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior art reference US2006008256A1, including prior art FIG. 2, discloses navigation of a locally stored database of digital media content may use an up/down toggle button on the device to “spin” letters up and down 802, one at a time, to create a five-or six-character string, while the list of artists or titles displayed changes to match the partial string created 803, enabling a user to zero-in on a particular artist or title by searching alphabetically. US2006008256A1 discloses that alternatively, a user could search by other methods, such as by popularity (number of plays or downloads by users, published rankings, aggregated and averaged user ratings, volume of purchases or other ways) 804.
Prior art reference US2006008256A1, including prior art FIG. 2, discloses a search method for non-technical users. A menu tab 801 is used to indicate, and allow choice via a touch-screen, the current and available areas of search. One-to-one marketing and communications 805, triggered by the particular selection or activity of the user at a particular time, displays an appropriate message that is stored on the device following a Device-Network Synchronization and is generated based on application software on the device. Play controls 202 for nontechnical users enable play and control of located and accessed content. Users can search for new content, without being connected to the Internet or any external database, by searching the locally stored database on the device via a “spinning letter” technique 802. When letters are spun, the character string generated scrolls the listing of available content displayed in text box 803 in real time. This enables even a non-technical user to zero in and locate a particular item. Users can search content listings sorted in a variety of orders by toggling a sort button 804, which can be done alphabetically by artist or title, or by popularity, ranking or genre.
Historically, interfaces used for browsing digital media content, such as that of prior art FIG. 2, have been grounded in the same paradigm as used for browsing any digital files. That is, the browsing interface presented to the end user has been essentially graphical in nature: The GUI (“Graphical User Interface”).
That form of interface traditionally relies on the use of thumbnails—images of artists and of album artwork—and graphical controls, such as buttons and lists of digital media.
That kind of legacy user interface, however, provides the end user with few if any cues as to the nature of the digital media content being browsed: Album artwork and track titles may be useful indicators that a particular musical track is available but it provides no actual cues to the user as to the content of that track. A movie poster signals the presence of a movie but, again, provides only an indirect indication as to the tone of the underlying video.
The present invention solves those historical problems by providing a browsing interface to the end user which is directly derived from the digital media content itself, and thus presents the end user with immediate cues during navigation as to the kind of digital media content being navigated.
The present invention, in a preferred embodiment, utilises DSP (“Digital Signal Processing”) technology where necessary to calculate such metadata as the location of “hooks” within a piece of digital media content.
3D Audio Effect techniques, such as Surround Sound, may also be employed to cause audio, on playback, to seem to originate from a particular spatial location.